Selwyn’s cigar was held suspended on its way to his lips.  “Whose party?  Where was it?”

“Two doors from here.  The girl who gave it, or rather, to whom it was given, is named Bryce—­Evelyn Bryce.  She is a friend of Mrs. Mundy’s and is a printer.  I never knew a girl printer until I came down here.”

Selwyn’s look of amazed disapprobation had its usual effect.  I hadn’t intended to mention the party, and instantly I went into its details.

“All kinds of people were at it and every woman had on a dress which entirely covered her.  When I was a child I adored a person named Wyman, who used to give performances in which all sorts of unexpected things happened.  Last night was a sort of Wyman night.”

“I did not know you were going to parties.”  Selwyn’s tone was curt.

“I am not—­to your sort.”  My face flushed.  “I said this girl was a printer.  I should have said she used to be.  Two years ago she was caught in some machinery at the place where she worked and has never been able to stand up since.  On her birthday her friends give her a party that she may have a bit of brightness.  I went over to play that they might dance.  She is fond of music and an old piano has recently been given her by—­by some one interested in her.”

For a moment there was silence, then throwing his cigar in the fire, Selwyn got up and stood looking down at me.  In his eyes was strange worry and unrest.

“I beg your pardon.”  He bit his lips.  “I’ve been pretty ragged of late and I’m always thoughtless.  For two weeks I’ve seen no one—­that is, no friend of yours or mine who hasn’t asked me why you have done so inexplicable a thing as to leave everybody you know and go into a part of the town where you know nobody and where—­”

“It’s because I want to know all sorts of people.”  Something in Selwyn’s face stopped me, and, getting up from the sofa, I went over to the window and raised it slightly.  My heart was pounding.  I could laugh away the questions of others and ignore their comments, but with Selwyn this would be impossible.  An overwhelming sense of distance and separation came over me demoralizingly as I pretended to rearrange the curtain, and for a moment words would not come.

I knew, of course, that Selwyn had neither patience nor sympathy with my desire to know more of life than I could learn in the particular world into which I had been born, but the keener realization to-night made between us a wide and separating gulf, and I felt suddenly alone and uncertain, and dispirited and afraid.

In our love of books, of digging deep into certain subjects, of historic questing and speculative discussions we are closely sympathetic, but in many viewpoints we are as apart as the poles.  Perhaps we will always be.

Selwyn by heritage and training and natural inclination is conventional and conservative.  I am not.  To walk in beaten tracks is not easy for me.  I want to explore for myself.  He thinks a woman has no business in by-paths.  Our opposing beliefs do not make for placid friendship.